— Minahil Asim

Abstract: Following decentralization reforms, middle-tier governance structures (e.g., districts and municipalities) in Latin American education systems have evolved in structural and auxiliary ways, yet their roles, effectiveness, and impact on school improvement remain understudied. We systematically review gray and academic literature (2004–2023) in Spanish, Portuguese, and English to understand how scholars conceptualize and analyze subnational actors and organizations. We find that (a) the research is uneven, concentrated in Chile and Brazil, with limited comparative or empirical work across contexts; (2) the papers describe reforms that oscillate between local autonomy and strong central oversight, producing prescriptive models that improve accountability but constrain local innovation (i.e., middle-tier actors are tasked with new pedagogic and managerial responsibilities without the resources, clear mandates, or capacity development needed to carry them out effectively); and (c) few studies evaluate whether and how the middle-tier structures improve teaching and learning, leaving evaluation and measurement underdeveloped. The review calls for deeper empirical and comparative research on the topic.

Abstract: Improving access to post-secondary education in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has received less attention in academic and policy circles, compared to primary and secondary education. We know little about the effectiveness of programs, policies, and interventions that aim to improve the transition of students from secondary to post-secondary education. In this paper, we study a 2-year college operated by a national NGO (NGOC) in Pakistan that offers a holistic preparatory and support program for students to apply to and enroll in 4-year universities. Using administrative and survey data from 1450 students in a propensity score weighting design, we compare students who attend the NGOC with similar students who attend a different 2-year college. We find that NGOC students are significantly more likely to apply to and enroll in 4-year universities. We discuss potential contextual factors through which the NGOC could have improved student access to universities. In particular, we have suggestive evidence that access to more information on the application process and financial aid opportunities through counseling and mentoring was one way the NGOC potentially improved the transition of students to post-secondary education. Our results have implications for programming at similar 2-year colleges, and for policy to improve post-secondary educational trajectories of students in LMICs.

Abstract: Sub-national actors and organizations are crucial mediators of policy implementation due to their proximity to schools. However, in low- and middle- income country contexts, little is known about their management practices and factors that shape the adoption of these practices to improve education delivery.  We explore the management context of five District Education Directorates in Ghana, and the factors that enable or constrain them to plan and implement policy through a qualitative study of semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and education policy and planning documents.  To understand how policy implementation happens within complex, multi-tiered bureaucracies, our theoretical framework uses four management functions described in Williams et al. (2021) to explore two different paradigms of how to change public bureaucracies: target setting and prioritization; measurement and monitoring; accountability and incentives; and problem-solving. We coded and analysed our data based on this framework and developed district-wide narrative memos to synthesize the findings. We identify three areas of (mis)alignment in management practices: across bureaucratic levels and among actors; around clear and consistent priorities for learning; in expected actions and availability of resources. These (mis)alignments can constrain or be leveraged by districts to improve education delivery in Ghana. We argue for better prioritization of goals towards learning and the efficient allocation of funds for management practices typical of effective organizations. 

Abstract: Research in the context of decentralization has primarily focused on the role of school-based actors in improving educational outcomes for students in low- and middle-incomecountries (LMICs). The role of the“middle tier,”such as subnational staff at the regionalor district levels of educational leadership within the education bureaucracy, has not beensystematically understood. We conduct a rigorous review of academic and gray literaturein the English language andfind that (1) research on the middle tier is limited in the dis-course on education reform in LMICs; (2) in the available research, there is tension in thetheoretical conceptualization and the practices of the middle tier between differentfields ofstudy and research methods; (3) we know even less about whether and how the middle tiersupports improvements in student learning. Our article calls on researchers to investigatehow the middle tier can strengthen education service delivery in LMICs. 

Abstract: The effective governance of local public services depends critically on the civic engagement of local citizens. However, recent efforts to promote effective citizen oversight of the public-sector services in developing countries have had mixed results. This study discusses and evaluates a uniquely designed, low-cost, scalable program designed to improve the governance and performance of primary and middle schools in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The School Council Mobilization Program (SCMP) used mobile-phone calls to provide sustained and targeted guidance to local school-council members on their responsibilities and authority. We examine the effects of the SCMP on school enrollment, and student and teacher attendance, using a “difference-in-difference-in-differences” (DDD) design based on the targeted implementation of the SCMP. We find that this initiative led to meaningful increases in primary-school enrollment (i.e., a 4.0 percent increase), and the improvements were sustained in the months after the program concluded.

Abstract: Programs and policies in education overwhelmingly focus on improving the average academic achievement for students. However, educational interventions focused on literacy improvement can impact readers at different levels of the reading score distribution differently, and the distributional differences may be more pronounced by sex. In this paper, I explore data from a field experiment in a district in Rwanda that was intended to make classroom reading pedagogy more effective and engage students, families, and communities in reading activities outside of school to improve students’ reading outcomes.I study the distributional effects of the intervention on students on two higher-order reading outcomes – Kinyarwanda fluency and Kinyarwanda text comprehension, measured for students who met a basic literacy threshold. I find that a) the set of interventions had a positive and significant, albeit modest effect on students at or above the 25th percentile of the reading distributions b) the program had positive and significant effects on reading outcomes for girls only, and these effects differed along the reading achievement distribution. This work underscores the importance of tailoring programs and policies to the needs of different types of learners.

Abstract: Parents who experience food insecurity face not only uncertainty in obtaining food, but an invisible emotional burden, one that can potentially influence both their parenting behaviors and ultimately, their children. In our study, we investigated adult food insecurity’s link to parents’ aggravation and whether that aggravation influenced their children’s behaviors. Results, based on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 using first-difference regression, showed that parents (N = 7,820) of first graders who became food insecure experienced heightened parenting aggravation (0.525; p < .01). Our mediation analysis on a matched sample of food secure (n = 1,600) and insecure parents (n = 470) revealed that adult food insecurity was not directly associated with children’s behaviors; rather, it was indirectly related to lowered attentional focus (−0.062; p < .05) and inhibitory control (−0.093; p < .001) via parenting aggravation. Our findings underscore the importance of parenting aggravation in transmitting the effects of food insecurity on children’s behaviors.

Abstract: How do teachers prioritize student well-being when it comes at the expense of academic outcomes? We implement structured survey experiments with public school teachers to measure their sensitivity to the academic costs of supporting student well-being. We find that support decreases significantly as academic costs increase, with substantial differences across domains. Sensitivity to academic costs is not significantly associated with how much teachers value student mental health or with their perceived ability to support it, but is significantly higher among teachers who place greater responsibility for student mental health on parents. We then study a government-mandated one-day training to examine whether increasing awareness of student mental health changes teachers’ valuation, perceived ability, sense of responsibility, and willingness to incur academic costs. We find no overall change in academic cost sensitivity, valuation, or self-efficacy, while the training suggestively increases perceived parental responsibility, potentially reflecting greater awareness of the limits of teachers’ roles. We do not find any statistically detectable short- or longer-term effects. Together, these findings highlight the importance of teachers’ sensitivity to the academic costs of supporting student well-being, and the limits of training inchanging howthey navigate these trade-offs.

Abstract: We study how personalized teacher attention affects student achievement by randomizing whether students receive messages on behalf of their teacher containing either information on past performance, information with teacher-set performance expectations, additional peer pairing for encouragement, or no message. We find that messages containing information or expectations improve math achievement by 0.18–0.21σ, with students interpreting both as signals of teacher attention. Effects are largest among low-performing students and those randomized to receive more ambitious expectations. Peer pairing only improves outcomes when students are similar. Our findings show that signaling teacher attention is a cost-effective input in the education production function.

Abstract: An optimal policy design in service provision requires trading off the efficiency advantages of decentralization, with the capacity disadvantages at the local level. The School Council Mobilization Program (SCMP) in Punjab, Pakistan aimed to do exactly that: through regular and targeted phone calls, the program informed and nudged school management committees to utilize their allocated budget for school improvement activities and strengthen local governance of schools. Using multiple datasets and a difference-in-differences estimation strategy, I find that schools where members received the SCMP calls were 7 percent more likely to spend money and spent 50 percent more funds in absolute terms, compared to non-SCMP schools. However, outcomes on which members were encouraged to spend the money, such as improvement of school facilities and hiring of contract teachers, remained unchanged. Worse, students in SCMP schools scored lower in Math, English, and Urdu by approximately one-tenth of a standard deviation than students in non-SCMP schools. I argue that local governance interventions that do not focus on learning, and/or fail to include teachers in the design, make schooling worse-off for students.

Abstract: The aim of this work stream is to document research on post-secondary education (2 and 4-year colleges) in mainstream academic research across different disciplines in developing countries. Through a systematic review we will analyze what interventions and programs are successful at improving transition/college readiness of students from high school to post-secondary educational institutes in low- and middle- income countries. Our study will offer a framework for studying post-secondary education in low- and middle-income countries.